Blixa’s early adventures as a Bad Seed

Blixa and Henry Rollins (note EN logo tattoo) with Diamanda Galas
Los Angeles, 1985. (Photo: Jessamy Calkin)

*STRONG LANGUAGE/CONTENT ADVISORY

In his Black Flag tour diary, Get in the Van, Henry Rollins writes:

6.23.84 Long Beach CA: I go to the Tropicana Hotel to find Nick Cave.  Marcy has called and said she’s at the end of her rop looking after the Bad Seeds and would I do it for a while during the day.

So I show up at the room and it looks like a tornado has been through there — clothes, a few girls are passed out on the bed. And then there’s Nick and Blixa. They look like they haven’t slept yet. Blixa must live in those leather clothes because they sure smell ripe… So now we’re at Zed Records [and] people are making assholes of themselves trying to get to them.

6.24.84 At Marcy’s [Henry's additional diary details from June 23rd.] Yesterday was really interesting. The in-store finishes and I’m in charge of getting the two boys into this girl’s car and getting them back to the hotel. I see Nick in the back of a carload of scummy people. He looks at me through the window and waves weakly. Someone tells me that he went with those people because they have drugs or something. So okay, I’ve still got Blixa who is now drunk. We get into the car and we are going fast, back to L.A. The girl is looking bad and driving poorly. I ask her what the matter is. She’s on heroin. Great. Blixa sees an oil pump and touches the window and says, “Umm nice.” Then he says he has to take a piss right now, pull over. The girl says she will when it looks good to do so. Blixa says that he is a human organism and he must urinate now and calls her a bitch. He grabs the steering wheel and shoves it hard. The car lurches over two lanes. Cars beep and hit their brakes all around us. I ask him what his fucking problem is. Blixa says, “What is the matter? It is not you that would have been killed.” He says that he is going to take the piss now and opens the door to get out. Whoops. The car is going about 60 mph. I grab him and pin him to the seat until we pull into a gas station. He says nothing all the rest of the way.

We take some of the Bad Seeds to the Music Machine to see The Gun Club play. They stank. Mostly because Jeffrey [Lee Pierce] was so shitfaced he couldn’t play. It sucks because their new album The Las Vegas Story is so cool. It would have been a great show. They did play a good version of ‘Walking with the Beast’. Blixa is falling down at this point and I am holding him up. He starts waltzing with me. It was great. I haven’t slow-danced since 8th grade (pp 100-101).

NOTE: Get in the Van is now in its 2nd Edition. I recommend it to those who enjoy tour diaries and behind the scenes accounts of the punk underground. Rollins makes multiple references to his meetings with Nick Cave and Blixa Bargeld during the 1980s. A good read.  It’s worth pointing out that these are Henry Rollins’ stories – and they may or may not be accurate.  They are, however, entertaining, and consistent with other material I have seen/read from that period.

Next is a two-part video interview with Nick & Blixa, taped three days later, at the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds performance in Columbus, Ohio, 27 June 1984. The footage speaks for itself. A rare and funny glimpse into The Bad Seeds first American tour. (Interviewer: Rick Klaus Theis)

Nick & Blixa Interview – Stache’s, Columbus OH, 27 June 1984 (Pt 1)

Nick & Blixa Interview – Stache’s, Columbus OH, 27 June 1984 (Pt 2)

SOURCE:  Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag (2nd Edition) by Henry Rollins

MORGAN NOTE: Videos are from my personal collection. Special thanks to Marianne who found the entire copy and shared it with her friends.

*Portions of this post are from ‘Early Bad Seeds‘ , published 28 Sept 2009, at Nick Cave Fixes blog.  Text portions edited by Morgan 20 September 2011 to include Henry’s entire entire for 23/24 June.